CAG announces creation of centralised cadres to boost audit expertise

New Delhi [India], November 6 (ANI): The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, K Sanjay Murthy, has approved the creation of two new specialised cadres within the Indian Audit and Accounts Department (IA&AD): the Central Revenue Audit (CRA) Cadre and the Central Expenditure Audit (CEA) Cadre, effective January 1, 2026.
This reform aims to enhance professional expertise and improve the quality of audit of the Central Government finances. The decentralised cadre control has led to fragmentation, with cadres distributed across 16 and 19 Cadre Controlling Authorities for CRA and CEA, respectively.
The new cadres will consolidate over 4,000 audit professionals, promoting specialisation in revenue and expenditure audits. The CRA Cadre will focus on auditing government revenue collections, while the CEA Cadre will focus on government expenditure.
Key benefits include deeper domain expertise in revenue and expenditure audits, reduced cadre-controlling authorities, transparent rotation and postings, improved manpower deployment, uniform practices and reduced administrative overhead.
The reform will introduce separate SAS examination streams for CRA and CEA, merging the existing Finance & Communication Audit stream into CEA. Officers will be required to qualify in cadre-specific papers, and appointments will be made through these specialised streams.
The CAG aims to strengthen public audit, achieving greater professional depth and enhancing financial oversight of the Central Government.
Earlier, K. Sanjay Murthy addressed the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Board (GASAB) meeting and launched digital website initiatives. The work of all organised accounting services in GASAB reflects the commitment towards improving transparency in the Government Accounting and Standard-setting process, according to the official release.
This was stated by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India while addressing the 37th board meeting of the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Board.
During the meeting, the CAG launched the digital GASAB website, aimed at improving accessibility and transparency in government accounting standards. Murthy stated that the standard-setting work undertaken by GASAB is an exercise entailing multiple stakeholder interactions and feedback from subject matter experts. (ANI)